Word.ws English Dictionary

goof off

UK/ˌɡuːf ˈɒf//ˌɡuf ˈɔf/

goof off verb: to dawdle, lollygag; to waste time aimlessly or engage in idle activity or inactivity.

Verb

goof off (third-person singular simple present goofs off, present participle goofing off, simple past and past participle goofed off)

  1. (Australia, US, intransitive, slang) To dawdle, lollygag; to waste time aimlessly or engage in idle activity or inactivity.
    • He sat there goofing off all day instead of working.
    • I've been goofing off since the day I was born.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 173
  2. (US, dated, slang, transitive) To make a mistake.
    • He goofed off this whole project.
  3. (US, dated, intransitive, slang) To fall asleep or pass out on drugs.

Forms of goof off

third-person singular presentgoofs off
present participlegoofing off
past participlegoofed off
pastgoofed off

Questions about goof off

What does goof off mean?
Goof off means to dawdle, lollygag; to waste time aimlessly or engage in idle activity or inactivity.
What part of speech is goof off?
Goof off is a verb.
How do you pronounce goof off?
Goof off is pronounced /ˌɡuːf ˈɒf/ (UK).
What is the past tense of goof off?
The past tense of goof off is goofed off.

Words near goof off in the dictionary

  1. gooeyest
  2. gooeyness
  3. gooeys
  4. goof
  5. goof around
  6. goof off
  7. goof on
  8. goof up
  9. goof-off
  10. goof-offs
  11. goof-up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goof off (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-goof off.ogg, en-au-goof off.ogg.

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